Cars began to transform life in
America in the first decades of the 20th century. With
the exception of a few of the more prosperous citizens, not
many Rockville people bought automobiles in the early
years. They may have had good reason to hesitate;
according to local lore, at a time when there were only two
cars in all of Rockville, those two had a head-on collision
in a narrow alley! But by the 1920s cars were common,
and in 1923 there were 16 auto-related businesses in town.
More
people with automobiles meant more people who could easily
travel longer distances between their homes and work or
play. Subdivisions sprang up farther outside of town
while restaurants, tourist cabins, and the like appeared on land formerly farm fields.
<< Early motorcars were
troublesome - they often broke down, the noise frightened horses,
and they were uncomfortable. Vernon Beall on horseback
pulling William L. Beall's Pullman model 1915 car in
front of St. Mary's Church.
Dated ca. 1920; photograph by Lewis Reed, Charles
Brewer Collection (CB1982.125)
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